


You Need a Vacation

by greenishio



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Attempt at Humor, Beaches, Did I mention angst, Falling In Love, Insecure Loki (Marvel), Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Loki tries to convince him the Loki way, M/M, Manipulative Loki (Marvel), Miscommunication, Pining, Reluctant Soulmates, Sakaar (Marvel), Tony Has Trust Issues, Tony Stark Feels, Tony doesn't want to be soulmates, Vacation, a bit of adventure, internalized Jotunphobia, loki is a little shit, post Endgame AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2020-10-09 03:44:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20485088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenishio/pseuds/greenishio
Summary: Going on a vacation with Loki is a bad idea. Tony just didn't realize how bad.





	1. The Planet of Lost Things: Part I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kirlya_Tzara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirlya_Tzara/gifts).

> This is the gift for [Kirlya_Tzara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirlya_Tzara/) for the Frostiron Gift Exchange. You asked for Tony and Loki going on a holiday and here it is. I'm sorry it's late. I wrote too much and only finished editing the first third(?) Forgive me for posting this in smaller chunks per week as I'm desperately hoping I can finish editing the rest in the mean time. It kinda got out of hand so it might not be what you're looking for I'm very sorry. I hope you can at least get some enjoyment out of it ^^;;;
> 
> A big thank you to [Raven_Ehtar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raven_Ehtar/) for helping me bounce around ideas, and all my love to [Rabentochter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rabentochter) and [JanecShannon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanecShannon) for betaing <333

“When you said vacation, this was not what I had in mind!” Tony hissed, poking his head into the walk-in closet. The excessive gold painted over the room made him squint his eyes.

“This is only a detour. We’ll leave once I find what I seek,” Loki hissed back. “And unless you want the entire palace coming after us, do keep your eyes on the hallway.” He made a shooing gesture (which was just rude) and went back to rummaging through the cabinets.

“What are you looking for? A ballroom gown?”

Loki ignored him, throwing another pile of unwanted clothes onto the floor and dug through the next cabinet.

Tony sighed and walked back to the bedroom. Unlike the gold of the walk-in closet, the main bedroom had the eye-watering color scheme of turquoise and bright red. The entire wall facing the bed was a painting of two heavily-muscled alien gladiators coming at each other, axes held high above their heads. Tony wasn’t sure how someone could sleep staring at that.

He groaned inwardly. He knew, he _ knew _ coming along with Loki was a bad idea. He should have turned back the moment Loki said the planet was Sakaar. Neither Thor nor Bruce had any nice things to say about it.

So why did he agree to this?

He was just tired and maybe a little drunk. In hindsight he probably shouldn’t have been drinking four in the afternoon, but it was one of those days.

Days when all the little things added up, when a disastrous mission dredged up old resentment. Days when the team didn’t feel like a team, and he couldn’t remember why he hadn’t retired the minute Thanos turned to dust.

And then there was Loki - god of Mischief, trouble magnetic, and all-around headache who also happened to be his soulmate - sauntering into Tony’s living quarters uninvited, grinning like everything was a joke. He found comfort in that, in a perverse way.

The rational part of him knew he should kick Loki out per usual. The last thing he needed was to give Loki a chance to slip under his defenses.

On the other hand, Loki’s offer of a getaway from the Avengers had been tempting, alarmingly so.

The thought of getting far away from the team, light-years away, and breathe under a sky that he didn’t feel obligated to protect every second? He found himself wanting that, just for a little while.

So he said yes. The surprise in Loki’s face was almost worth it. Almost.

Now, standing in the strange turquoise bedroom, he wasn’t sure if anything was worth being stranded on a trash-filled planet and playing lookout for Loki looting someone’s closet.

He was 90% convinced that this was some kind of revenge for his refusal to complete their soulbond.

At least he had the armor on. It made him feel slightly safer. He didn’t need a case of Loki ‘accidentally’ touching him, not that sealing soulbond was as simple as making direct physical contact. Still, he liked to be cautious.

He waited a minute before poking his head into the closet again. “Are you done yet?”

Loki looked over his shoulder. Instead of the annoyance Tony expected, he seemed amused. A faint smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “Impatient, are you?”

Maybe it was only Tony’s imagination, but his soulmark felt slightly warm. He resisted the urge to touch the spot (not that he could with the suit). Over the years, he had developed a nervous habit of rubbing over that bit of skin, as if he could simply wipe it away. The blue color was very faint - a sign that assured him the bond was still incomplete. The soulmark’s shape reminded him of a dagger’s blade, or a broken piece of glass. He couldn’t decide which.

Warning beeps interrupted his thoughts. The nano drones he had stationed outside the door had detected hostile presences rapidly approaching.

“Loki-”

The doors exploded. Debris and smoke filled the room. He ducked in time to avoid a wave of energy gunshots. He formed a shield to deflect the next wave. In the corner of his eye, he saw Loki slipping out the closet into another room. He followed, and found the room empty.

“Loki!” he called out. Losing Loki was not good. He didn’t like the idea of being stuck on this planet alone.

Holding up his increasingly beat up shield, he edged closer to the hexagon-shaped window and looked out. They were on the top floors of the tallest building in the city, at least a thousand feet above the ground.

He was debating the wisdom of shooting a mini missile to break the window when a thick, white fog started filling the room. For an instant, he thought the guards had released poison gas, but when he scanned the fog-like substance, it showed nothing except a faint trace of energy.

“Stark.”

He turned to the source of Loki’s voice but saw only more fog. The guards were shouting in alarm and confusion. He felt a tug on his arm and he followed, going through a door opposite the guards’ direction, then another door, and into the hallway. 

Here the fog was thinner, but he still couldn’t see much beyond a few feet.

“Loki?” he whispered.

He heard a familiar chuckle, then caught the sight of red and black armor. The dark grey mask of a typical Sakaaran guard stared back at him.

The guard waved his hand. A flash of green light washed over Tony, and he found himself wearing the same disguise of a Sakaaran guard. He wiggled his hand in fascination.

“Come, we’re leaving,” Loki said.

“Yeah, you just had to wait until the whole tower knows we’re here,” Tony muttered, following him.

It turned out having a whole building’s worth of guards looking for them posed no challenge for Loki. He knew the place like the back of his hand. One elevator ride plus a bit of sneaking and they were walking out the tower with no one the wiser.

Loki lifted the illusions when they blended into the crowd.

“I hope that was worth whatever you stole,” Tony said but heard no reply. He turned and caught sight of Loki’s figure disappearing into the horde of garishly-dressed aliens milling about.

“Hey, wait- oh come on!” He pushed through the crowd.

For a moment he lost him in a sea of face paints and bright colors (this planet’s inhabitants had some questionable fashion sense). Then he saw Loki up ahead, turning into another street. He followed.

Two more turns and he found himself in a much quieter area with a walkway leading up to a dome-shaped building. Dramatically posed marble statues stood on both sides. Blue and yellow ribbons gently swayed in the wind above his head as he walked up to the building cautiously.

He stepped inside. It took a moment to adjust to the sudden darkness. He was in a theater of some sort with a stage lit up at the center. Two grey-skinned aliens stood on the stage speaking in low vibrating sounds that reminded him of bees. A few spectators had scattered among the seats. Not a popular play by the looks of it. 

He found Loki sitting at the very back row, looking perfectly at ease. He plopped down next to him, his armor clanging against the seat.

“You know, you and I have very different ideas of what a vacation is.”

“I told you, that was only a detour.” Loki gestured at the stage. “Is this not better?”

“Only in the sense that no one is trying to kill me,” he grumbled. He watched the play for a bit before giving up. He had no idea what he was watching.

“What did you steal?”

“I did not steal. I simply took back what belonged to me.”

When Tony kept glaring at Loki, he sighed. “If you must know, there was a cape I was particularly fond of.”

Tony was speechless for a few seconds.

“A cape?” He wasn’t sure he heard right. “We went through all that for a _ cape _?”

“Well, also a pair of boots-”

Tony had a very real urge to bang his head against something. He took a deep breath.

“At least tell me you know the way back to Earth.” He was certain the wormhole they came through was one-way only.

Loki arched an eyebrow at him. “But we’ve barely started.”

“Call me old-fashioned, but my vacations don’t usually involve being chased around and getting arrested for stealing.” As far as he remembered anyway.

Loki waved his hand dismissively. “They will not find us. I can cloak us under an invisibility spell and avoid their tracking devices.”

“Huh, that spell would have been really handy back when, you know, a million guns were shooting at me?” he commented airily. He expected Loki to retort, which he did. What he didn’t expect was the slight pause before it.

Tony narrowed his eyes. “Did you hang back on purpose?”

Loki gave him a look that wasn’t quite guilty. Tony stood up.

“Stark, it was only a bit of fun-”

He ignored Loki and walked out of the building in wide strides. Once out in the sun, he let out a long breath.

The thing was, he couldn’t even get that mad. He had expected Loki to be an asshole. It wasn’t exactly news. The rational thing to do now was to find a way back home, except standing at the entrance of the theater, he felt weirdly… lost. 

There was no imminent threat to Earth. FRIDAY and the new Iron Legion could take care of the more mundane problems. The Avengers functioned fine without him. They probably functioned _ better _ without him, actually.

He watched the colorful ribbons overhead swayed in the breeze.

The truth was, he didn’t want to go back yet, as disorienting as the whole trip had been so far. So what if he was semi-stuck on an alien planet with Loki, who seemed to have nothing better to do than to mess with him?

At least _they_ weren't here, his mind whispered.

The Avengers. Wanda, Sam, Nat, and everyone else who seemed to be constantly exasperated with him. God, just imagining the cool contempt and resignation in their eyes at yet another one of Tony Stark’s antics made him want to cringe.

When had he started dreading walking back into the Avengers compound? 

He had tried - he really did - to mend things after Steve and the others returned to the compound, but where did that get him? Steve still left (abandoned) them. He couldn’t stop thinking about all the what ifs. Was it his fault? Would Steve have stayed had he done better?

He had been so lost in thought that he didn’t notice when Loki had came out and stood beside him.

He glanced over. Loki’s face was carefully blank, no doubt contemplating how best to appease him.

“Stark, I…”

“You still want to show me around?” he blurted out.

Surprise flickered in Loki’s face before he smoothed his expression into a confident smile. “Of course.”

“This better be good then,” he muttered. He needed a distraction. At least whatever disaster this turned out to be, it would be a change of pace from the usual stuff.

Loki’s eyes lit up with the promise of mischief.

“But no stealing and murdering,” Tony hurriedly added.

“You really know how to take the fun out of things.” Despite the words, Loki’s smile widened into a grin.


	2. The Planet of Lost Things: Part II

The first place Loki suggested visiting was the the gladiator stadium. Tony passed on that. After that morning’s Avengers mission, the thought of a crowd cheering on violence made his stomach turn. Loki didn’t insist, but he did remark dryly that Tony was missing out on quality entertainment.

While they strolled through the chaos of the marketplace, Loki goaded him into eating a stuffed roll from a food stand- a stuffed roll with a mysterious yellow mush and way too many purple tentacles sticking out. The best he could describe it was raw seafood marinated in acid plus a strong metallic aftertaste. In other words, it was gross. He didn’t spit it out, but he came close.

His scrunched up face drew a laugh from Loki - not the usual fake or manic kind, but a genuine, surprised laugh. It softened Loki’s features and made him seem like a... a real person. 

In Tony’s mind, Loki had always been this indecipherable cloud of magic and mayhem. Now, standing in the hazy afternoon sun, with the trace of laughter at his lips, Loki seemed absurdly human. He wondered if this version of Loki was what Thor held onto when he insisted his baby brother had reformed.

Tony was sure he had stared too long, but Loki didn’t comment on it. His eyes, still bright from the laughter, met Tony’s for a brief moment before moving away. He ushered Tony to try other horrific-looking things over at the next stand, and Tony found himself going along. 

They visited a few other odd places. The inhabitants had a manic air about them that made Loki downright tolerable in comparison. He wasn’t sure how long they had been wandering. After a while the city was starting to feel like a maze. The sun had either been looping in a circular path above the sky, or Tony was hallucinating.

Maybe Loki had noticed his restlessness because he abruptly suggested getting a ride out of the city. 

Before Tony could protest, Loki was climbing onto a small, slightly scrappy-looking spaceship and breaking in. He supposed he should be thankful that Loki’s streak of good behavior had even lasted this long.

He grumbled a bit about stealing. Loki offered the pilot seat to him. After that, he was too busy playing with alien spaceship technology to complain. Loki seemed unconcerned that Tony couldn’t read any word on the screen and had zero experience flying this spaceship model. He might very well have crashed it.

He didn’t, of course. He flew the ship high above the city without trouble.

Loki looked about as impressed as expected, which was not at all. He gave a coordinate located outside the city, saying he wanted to show Tony something there, and off they went.

Buildings gave away to grey ocean and isles of junk. Occasionally more debris would fall from the wormholes above, forcing Tony to dodge. It was almost like a game. A very grungy, smelly game.

“I get why Thor hated this place now,” he commented after the last bit of falling wreckage almost hit them.

Loki, who was sitting leg crossed beside him in the co-pilot seat, didn’t immediately reply. He stared through the window at the scene below where tiny figures of scavengers had climbed over a crashed spacecraft, pulling off its parts.

"Do you know what most of the enslaved gladiators on Sakaar did after they revolted?” 

“I don’t know. They partied?”

“They returned to the stadium, picked up their weapons, and tried to smash each other’s head open just like before. Nothing changed.” Loki started off in his usual sardonic tone but became quieter as he went on. “It wasn’t just Thor. Everyone hates this place, but they end up here for a reason. This place attracts people who have nowhere else to go. It attracts unwanted things.”

The shift in the mood was small. An edge to Loki’s voice and eyes not quite focused. And when Loki took a breath, Tony was sure he was pushing down something too raw to acknowledge.

Tony fiddled with the controls, feeling uncomfortable at seeing something he wasn’t meant to see. By the sudden closed off expression in Loki’s face, he knew Loki had felt his gaze.

He looked away and tried for levity. “Well, I can see why you brought me to this wonderful place. I’m very charmed. Completely and utterly charmed. Ten out of ten will marry you.”

Exasperation seeped into Loki’s voice. “I didn’t bring you here for the sights.”

“Really? I would never have known.”

“Patience, we’re almost there.”

Tony managed to swallow an inappropriate quip about patience or his lack thereof. The last thing he needed was to further encourage Loki, not that Loki had seemed particularly interested on that front. Maybe Tony wasn’t his type... if Loki even had a type beside cubical, blue and shiny.

They landed at the foot of a massive junk hill. Tony squinted at the now familiar sight through the windshield and turned to Loki.

"This isn’t some weird roundabout way to kill me and dump my body, right?”

Loki rolled his eyes. “Why would I kill my soulmate?”

“Don’t call me that.”

Loki didn’t deem that with a reply. He got up from the seat in one graceful swoop, cape flapping behind him, and exited the ship.

Tony, who was definitely not sulking about being called the s word, remained in his seat and watched Loki through the front windshield.

With a small flick of his hand, Loki moved a heap of rubbish off the top of the hill. At first he thought Loki was showing off. Then he saw _ what _Loki had uncovered beneath the rubbish－

Half buried at the top of the hill, twice his height at least, lay what appeared to be a robot’s head.

The metal head had a simplistic design. It was eggshell-shaped with a pair of large circular eyes stuck on like binoculars. The eyes’ glassy material was broken, leaving the eyes two empty sockets. There was no mouth.

Entranced, Tony got off the ship and mumbled a command to run scans on the huge object.

“What is it?” he asked with his eyes glued to the thing.

“The remains of a Wildebot.”

“So some kind of robot?”

“Yes, ‘some kind of robots’. Or more specifically, a race of robotic life form that had landed on Sakaar a while back and caused quite a headache for the Sakaarans. This is what’s left of them.” Loki indicated the hill in front of them. “A graveyard of Wildebots, so to speak.”

“Cheery,” Tony muttered.

Now that he was looking more closely, he spotted remains of other robots scattered all over the hill. None was nearly as large as the first one Loki uncovered though. All these pieces of robots strewn about reminded him of Ultron, and he had to resist the urge to shift on the spot, not wanting to show signs of discomfort in front of Loki.

FRIDAY started rattling off highlights from the initial scan.

“Holy shit.” All unpleasant memories were forgotten as he listened, eyes widening at the data flying over the HUD screen. The exterior of the robot’s head was damaged and worn, but its interior structure appeared mostly intact and more advanced than any other robot he had ever seen.

“Were they sentient?”

“I haven't had the pleasure of meeting them firsthand to know, but from the stories, it sounded probable. They could speak intelligently and had their own intricate social structure.”

Tony wanted to get a closer look and run more analysis. If these robots were sentient, if he could figure out how the transmission of complex sensory information worked in these non-organic life forms- it could be the breakthrough he needed to get Vision’s system up and running again. Filling the gap left by the mind stone in Vision’s system had been much more challenging than any of them anticipated.

A realization hit him, and he peered at Loki.

“What?” Loki asked innocently.

“You _ knew _.”

“I knew these things would be of interest to you, yes.”

“No, not just that-” Tony frowned. “You knew I had been stuck on Vision’s repair since forever... why are you being helpful?”

“Should I not be? After all, you are my-“

“Yeah, I get it. Just, can you stop saying that word?”

“Your denial is bordering on the absurd.” For the first time since they got here, real annoyance slipped into Loki’s voice. “Completion of our soulbond would benefit us both-”

“Oh, come on, not this again-”

“-you’ve already experienced firsthand the advantage of having a soulbond. As a matter of fact, you can still stand here and complain _ because _ of it.”

Tony winced at the reminder of last year’s battle with Thanos.

It wasn’t fair. He hadn’t meant to rely on the bond in any way. He had simply forgotten that having a soulbond meant sharing their life forces. He wasn’t even aware their bond was strong enough for that.

All he could think of at the time was stopping Thanos. Loki was the furthest thing from his mind as he called forth the power of all six infinity stones to end the battle. It wasn’t until a week later when he woke up in Wakanda’s medical facility that he pieced together what happened- the soulbond had taken so much life force from Loki to heal Tony’s injuries that it left the Asgardian in a comatose state.

Not everyone connected the dots between Tony’s miraculous recovery and Loki’s collapse, but enough people did, which was just great. More people knowing who Tony’s soulmate was. He was surprised the tabloids hadn’t picked up on it yet.

Loki was brought back to New Asgard. Tony heard updates from Thor that Loki had woken up after three weeks of intense healing.

He had thought about visiting. He felt guilty, guiltier than anything in recent memory. Willingly or not, Loki had saved him from being burned to a crisp. He just... didn’t know what to expect from Loki. He wouldn’t put it past Loki to use his weakened condition to guilt Tony into completing their bond. He ended up just sending a store-bought get well card and a gift basket. It was about as insincere as a gesture could get. Loki must have been pretty pissed off judging by how he had stopped showing up for nearly a year afterwards.

In fact, now that Tony thought about it, this was the first time Loki had bugged him since he recovered, maybe the lingering guilt was part of the reason he had agreed to come on this ludicrous trip. 

He sighed. “I didn’t- I didn’t mean to use bond like that. I forgot.”

“Your poor memory didn’t prevent the bond from almost killing us both. You’re too weak.”

Tony’s jaw clenched.

“Once our bond is complete, your strength and lifespan will match mine. What part of this is undesirable?” He gestured at Tony’s suit. “However formidable your armor is, it’s not _ you _ . You’re still the same breakable flesh and bone inside. You’re _ fragile _ compared to most of your shieldbrothers-”

Tony pushed down the mounting anxiety at Loki’s words and raised his voice. “Yeah, and a complete bond will also happen to make _ you _ even more powerful and harder to kill. That should work out great for Earth.” 

Loki scoffed. “I might gain a slight increase in powers, yes, but nowhere close to what you would gain. And I’m certainly not an enemy to your realm.” 

“Uh-huh, and no doubt you have nothing to do with those missing museum artifacts.”

“I have no idea what you’re referring to.”

“Of course not.”

Loki rolled his eyes. “Is this what has been bothering you? That I’m suspected of theft?”

“... no.” Tony paused. “No, that’s not it.” He wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Don’t you get it?”

“And pray tell, what do I not get?”

Tony huffed in exasperation. He hated talking about this, but it was so obvious that he couldn’t understand why Loki didn’t get it.

“You keep insisting on cementing the soulbond when I barely know you- when we barely know each other- I mean, do you seriously not care about the part where we’d be stuck with each other forever?”

Loki shrugged and replied as if the answer was obvious. “You’re free to live your life separate from mine.”

Tony barked out a laugh. It wasn’t as if he was surprised that Loki was uninterested in being actual soulmates, that Loki didn’t give a shit about him. Still, hearing the indifference expressed so clearly was not a nice feeling. He didn’t know why he even bothered asking.

“Right, and we’ll just _ somehow _ ignore all the side effects of having our emotions linked together, and the constant pull. I’m sure that’ll work out great.”

“I concede it may not be...ideal.” Loki gave a small huff, his eyes dropping away briefly. “But there are ways to control the undesirable effects. The advantages outweigh the negatives.”

“Okay, you know what, I’m done talking about this.” Tony started to walk away. He was sick of Loki referring to this like some kind of exchange.

“Stark, I expect you to be more sensible about this-“

“No,” he gritted out.

“Stark-”

“I’m not a tool!” He whipped around, shouting.

Loki seemed slightly taken aback. Tony walked away, desperately hoping that the outburst didn’t just expose his crap load of issues.

Loki didn’t say anything else, which was a relief.

Tony exhaled, trying to collect himself. He stared at the robot head up on the hill. Right now the banged up thing was the most likable face around here.

When in doubt, just do science.

Ignoring Loki, he opened the storage compartment in his gauntlet and released a dozen cubical-shaped drones.

He directed the drones to work their way into the robot, watching their progress on the HUD. Once inside, they started recording everything necessary to build a detailed 3D map. Focusing on the task made the tightness in his chest unclench a little.

A 3D map was good, but some physical samples would be even better-

“Stark,” Loki called from behind him.

Tony ignored him, watching the drones’ progress.

“Stark.”

“What?”

“We have visitors.”

A quick scan of their surroundings showed twenty or so heat signatures sneaking up from behind the hill.

“I thought you had waved your magic wand and cloaked us?”

“They didn’t see us. They _ heard _us. I suggest you make haste with whatever it is you’re doing.”

“Right, thanks for the very helpful suggestion,” Tony muttered, opening his gauntlet. It took 15 seconds for all the drones to return to him except for one.

The HUD showed it was stuck between some wires. Tony really should just leave it be, but the drone was _ his _, and he hated leaving his stuff behind.

So he flew up to the giant robot head, and he punched it. Hard.

The impact shook the drone loose. The little guy shot out of the robot’s eye socket with a joyous whir and joined the rest of the drones in his gauntlet’s storage.

Which was all well and good, except around the same time he heard a humming rising steadily from inside the robot’s head, which was not so good.

The next thing he knew, the whole hill was shaking like there was an earthquake.

Light flickered in one of the robot’s eye sockets. He was sure he saw the robot’s head_ moving _.

“Oh, fuck, how the hell-” He took off into the air, narrowly avoided being buried by a flood of junk rolling downhill. He flew higher and took in the sight below him.

The hill was breaking apart, revealing sinewy wires connecting the robot’s head to a torso. One skeletal arm emerged. Then another. The head dangled at an odd angle from its body, one eye shining bright like a super-sized arc reactor. Its movements were sluggish and jerky

“Shit.” He turned to look for Loki on the ground, which was stupid. Of course Loki would run at the first sign of trouble. He spotted their spaceship hovering a safe distance away. At least Loki didn’t run far.

“Sure, just leave me behind with the zombie robot here,” he muttered, flying toward the ship.

Once he got on board, he retracted his visor and yelled at Loki. “I thought you said the robots were all dead?!”

“Apparently I underestimated your unholy expertise with machines,” Loki replied dryly, “Have you tried punching your android to wake him from the dead?”

“Haha, very funny,” he said and fell silent.

“You’re seriously considering it, aren’t you?”

“No,” he lied.

The robot’s attention was drawn by the band of aliens who had previously been sneaking up on them. The aliens, who looked like hobos at a Mardi Gras parade with their raggy cloaks and face paint, were shooting at the robot. Tony could hear distinct yelling mixed with the sound of gunfire.

Despite the weapons having no clear effect on such a giant thing, they kept up the attack for some unfathomable reason. The robot shook violently and shot a huge beam of light from its eye socket. It missed the aliens and landed on a distant hill, making junk splatter everywhere. Tony watched in morbid fascination before he realized what he was doing and coughed.

“What now?” he asked, eyes still glued to the bizarre thing he had somehow unleashed. Loki shrugged.

“I would venture to guess that more scrappers would come and try to ‘capture’ this robot in hopes of selling it.” He seemed amused by the idea.

“No, I mean, shouldn’t we try to stop it?”

Loki shot him a look, steering the ship away from the scene below. “What we should do is make an exit before someone figures out we’re responsible for _ that _.” He sped up the ship.

“You seem like you’ve done this a lot.” It was surprising how little guilt Tony felt about leaving behind the mess he made. He was even feeling a small thrill that reminded him of his college days.

“You have no idea.” Loki grinned like the horrible influence he was, and Tony found his own lips quirked into a smile.


	3. The Planet of Lost Things Part III

As their ship glided back toward the city’s direction, they passed more trippy-looking aliens with guns trudging toward the robot’s direction. No one paid their ship any attention, and they got back to the edge of the city without any incident.

Loki pointed at a wormhole among several other similar wormholes up in the sky. “That one should take us back to Midgard, assuming your armor is strong enough to withstand the geodetic force a second time. This ship likely wouldn’t survive.”

“My suit can take a lot worse,” Tony replied quickly. He had significantly upgraded the armor’s adaptability in extreme space environments. Really, it wasn’t even that difficult. If alien spaceships could keep their shit together, so could his armor.

Loki eyed his armor with a faint disdain. “If you’re certain. It would be quite a shame to see you break into little pieces.”

“You should worry about yourself. You didn’t look so great coming out of it the first time,” Tony retorted, recalling Loki’s little stagger when they landed on Sakaar.

Loki’s expression darkened. Oops. Of all the little jabs, Tony had somehow managed to offend him with this one.

“I have survived much worse. You forget I’m not a breakable, _ weak _mortal.” Loki’s voice had dropped low.

“Right, again with that superiority thing.” Tony was getting really fed up.

“It’s simply a fact. You’re-”

“How about a race?” Tony cut in before Loki could start that tiresome ramble again.

“What?”

He walked to the hatch door. “I bet this mortal can get to that wormhole way faster than your highness.”

Loki narrowed his eyes. “You wouldn’t-”

Tony shoved the hatch door open and jumped out of the ship, his arms outstretched. He circled the ship once and gave a knock on the windshield before heading up toward the wormhole, where clouds gave away to brilliant blue sky.

Okay, so he knew it was stupid to get worked up by Loki’s trademarked ‘mortals are weak’ comments. Challenging Loki to a race would prove nothing except Tony had the maturity of an eight-year-old. Maybe this crazy planet was rubbing off on him. Or maybe it was Loki.

He looked over his shoulder and chuckled. Loki was steering the ship to catch up. Maturity be damned, he had a race to win.

A warning beep inside the helmet made him look up in time to see a piece of debris hurling toward him. He swerved at the last second, missing it by a few inches.

More debris rained down. He dodged the first few, and then had to stop in midair when a massive chunk of metal came straight at him out of nowhere. He couldn’t quite avoid it, but instead of a collison, he went_ right through _it.

It was an illusion. Loki’s stupid illusion.

The spaceship blew past him.

“Hey that’s cheating!” Tony yelled. He shifted his armor to form two more repulsors on his back, adding to the propulsion.

He whooped when he overtook Loki. He was getting way too into this.

The wormhole was about ten seconds away, FRIDAY informed him.

A large aircraft wing fell from another wormhole nearby and spun toward him. Tony huffed. “Come on, I’m not that stupid.” There was only a faint energy where the ‘debris’ was supposed to be. He plunged ahead.

Instead of meeting air, he collided with the very solid metal wing and spun off sideways.

It took him a few precious seconds to recover. By then the ship had taken the lead again, and he swore he could hear Loki’s cackling. The bastard had somehow fooled his system into thinking a real object was an illusion. He made a mental note to pull out the recording to study later.

As he closed the distance between them once more, he was very tempted to shoot at the ship in retaliation. It turned out he didn’t need to.

FRIDAY’s warning came a few seconds before burning debris started raining down all around them. They both slowed down to dodge. Some massive aircraft must have met an explosive end on the other side of one of the wormholes. He did a quick scan and found no life sign. Maybe it was an abandoned ship, he hoped.

One particularly large piece caught the side of Loki’s ship, throwing it into a spinning dive. Tony pulled ahead of the ship and would have kept flying if he hadn’t heard the sound of an explosion.

He looked down. The poor ship was dissolving into a fiery wreckage in midair.

For some reason, his first thought was Thor was going to murder him for this. He flew back down to scan for Loki among the ship wreckage, which was now floating on the sea. He doubted a bit of explosion would kill Loki. It just seemed like a tempting opportunity for the trickster to play dead and mess with him.

After half a minute, he did locate Loki, but not where he expected-

Loki was a distant figure in the sky all the way up at the mouth of the wormhole, very much in one piece and _ hovering _.

“What the-” Tony zoomed in on the image in his HUD. Loki was grinning like a cat, black cape flapping in the wind.

Why hadn’t anyone mentioned Loki could fly? Was it a new skill? There was something really disconcerting about a flying Loki, not that he wasn’t disconcerting in the first place.

He really, really hoped this had nothing to do with their soulbond. He sped toward Loki, a hundred questions in his mind. Before he could get close enough, Loki disappeared into the wormhole. He followed, powering the repulsors to the maximum, and dismissed FRIDAY’s warning about the risks of exerting high energy within a volatile space environment.

Loki was far up ahead. Not even the dazzling lights within the tunnel could take Tony’s eyes off of him. It wasn’t really about the race. Technically he had lost that one. He just wanted to catch up. He was already at maximum speed, but he wanted to go _ faster _.

As if in answer, a tremor started from the arc reactor and spread through the armor. Next thing he knew, the suit was breaking its speed record.

He was _ soaring. _

He laughed in delight. He was soaring like a dream and suspended at the same time. The noises in his ears had faded to just his heartbeat. In his peripherals, the analytics on the HUD were running wild. 

With the boost of speed, he was closing in fast.

Loki wasn’t looking in his direction. When Tony closed that final gap and gripped Loki’s hand, he caught a flash of surprise in the other man’s eyes.

Right then the wormhole ended abruptly, and they tumbled out into the open sky, falling.

They broke through a sea of clouds. Far below them lay soft green hills and valleys with thin threads of roads winding through. Wind rushed over his armor. FRIDAY informed him they were somewhere in the rural region of Switzerland.

He was still holding onto Loki by the hand. He looked over and caught Loki looking back with bright, laughing eyes, face dazzlingly bright in the sun and ink black hair whipping about wildly in the wind.

Tony didn’t know why, but he opened his helmet and pressed his lips to Loki’s.

For a second, Loki stilled, his lips felt cool against Tony’s, but then he responded with a burst of eagerness.

Hands came up to the back of Tony’s neck and pressed his body snug against leather armor and then Tony was drowning in those soft lips and clever tongue mixed with just a hint of teeth.

Through the haze of the kiss, through the air rushing by his ears, he realized they were slowing down. Loki’s magic was slowing their fall to a gentle drop.

A warm sensation tingled under his skin, near his left shoulder… his left shoulder, where his soulmark was-

_ Oh no. _

He wrenched free from Loki’s hold and fell the last few feet onto the ground with a heavy thud.

Loki landed lightly a few paces away. He might have said something, or maybe he laughed. It was hard to tell in the midst of Tony’s panic to check his soulmark. He retracted the suit’s chest plate and pulled down his shirt collar.

The tiny dagger-shaped mark below his collarbone remained a faint blue, maybe just slightly bluer. Either way it was still faint, a far cry from the rich, deep colors he had seen of other people’s soulmarks. He let out a breath.

It was okay. He was okay.

This was possibly the stupidest thing he had ever done- and that was saying something- but at least he had the confirmation that there was no immediate danger of accidentally sealing the bond.

He slumped forward, heart still pounding.

“Do calm yourself before your heart gives out, Stark.” Loki had his arms crossed, looking way too composed for someone who had been aggressively kissing him only a minute ago. “No one can force it on you, not even yourself.”

“I know that,” he muttered, resting his forehead in hands. Touches stemmed purely from physical attraction generally weren’t enough to cultivate a soulbond. There had to be affection, understanding and all that emotional mush that they clearly lacked.

He knew that, plus a whole bunch of other information about soulbonds. The first few years after the New York invasion, he had combed through all the scientific studies on the formation and development of soulbonds, looking for a way to reverse his own. He had been plagued by the idea that Loki being his soulmate would confirm what Steve had said- that Tony was nothing without his suit, or worse, that he was as bad as Loki. The same ego. The same flair for the dramatic. The same destructiveness.

He huffed. It was stupid to care about what _ Steve _ thought after everything.

“You’re overthinking this. The bond does not dictate who you are,” Loki said as if he could read minds (maybe he could), “It doesn’t need to _ mean _anything. Much like your armor, the bond can be used to your benefit.”

“... like how you can apparently _ fly _ now?” Tony asked without lifting his head.

Loki gave an incredulous laugh. “You think that was because of the bond?”

Tony looked up, frowning.

“Did you think I would risk returning to the Grandmaster’s palace over a few pieces of useless garments?” Loki asked. And, yeah, that was exactly what Tony thought.

Loki shook his head. “You know me better than that.”

“Actually, I don’t,” Tony said dryly, looking at Loki’s meticulous Asgardian-chic outfit. His eyes fell on the cape.

It was a different cape from the one he saw on Loki when they started the trip - so probably the stolen cape in question - but it still looked like a normal cape, a bit too black for Loki’s usual style, sure, really black, so black that he couldn’t see any texture reflected from it and did something just _ slithered _ within the cape－ he looked up at Loki, mouth slightly open.

“Did you steal a creepy magical cape that flies?”

Loki sighed. “You make everything sound ridiculous.”

Before Tony could piss him off with a jab about copying Stephen, Loki spoke again. “More importantly, I believe _ you _ were the one who had used the bond to your advantage. Again.”

“What are you talking about?” With a pang Tony recalled the odd way his suit had behaved in the wormhole tunnel.

Loki gave him a knowing look. “I assure you, borrowing a drop of my magic to fly faster is nothing compared to what a completed soulbond would allow you to do.” 

Tony was torn between alarm and a twinge of excitement, which was not a good sign. He stood up.

“You know, I think I’m gonna pass.” It was one thing to hear Loki talk about the soulbond’s benefits in theory. But when he had a taste of it? He knew temptation when he saw one.

A hint of frustration entered Loki’s eyes. “What exactly are you so opposed to, Stark? I may not fit your ideal image of a soulmate, but you have just demonstrated, quite clearly, that you’re not entirely averse to me-"

“Thanks for the trip.” Tony snapped the helmet over his head. He was not having a conversation about the kiss. He was not going to _ think _about the kiss. He took a step back.

“Stark.” In a blur, Loki appeared right up against him, his face way too close. The memory of the kiss came flooding back, and Tony froze like a deer.

Loki stared at him for an uncomfortably long moment, his eyebrows furrowed like Tony was a puzzle that stumped him. Then a smile spread from his lips.

He leaned in and pecked a little kiss on the helmet’s cheek. 

“Umm,” Tony responded intelligently. 

“You can’t run forever.” Loki’s smile wasn’t even close to one of his shark smiles, but Tony never felt so threatened in his life. The sight of those lips still red and slightly swollen from their kiss didn’t help.

He stumbled back, took off into the air, and shot off into the distance.

He did not just _ flee _from Loki, he told himself several times during his flight.

It wasn’t very convincing.


	4. Tiki Huts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update. If it's any consolation, this chapter is longer? ^^;;

It was evening by the time Tony made his way back to the Avengers Compound.

The common area was empty when he walked through. That morning’s mission was bad enough that everyone seemed to be still avoiding each other.

Sakaar felt like a weird dream - more so when he realized only 15 minutes had passed on Earth while he was there - but his armor system had recorded some very real data. He went down to his lab and locked himself in, praying he could get something out of the trip beside regrets and the urge to drink himself into oblivion.

Two days (or three, if FRIDAY was to be trusted) and an obscene amount of coffee later, he cracked the Vision problem.

There were still tests to run, but Vision was conscious and impatient to be gone, no doubt wanting to find Wanda. Everyone seemed eager to leave these days.

Patting himself on the back for a job well done, Tony dragged himself over to the bed and promptly passed out.

He woke up early the next morning, groggy and tired, which should be the first warning sign. After a science-binge like that, he should be dead to the world until past noon. It wasn’t until he had poured himself a mug of coffee, yawning and half listening to FRIDAY’s to-do list when last night’s dream came trickling back.

He had dreamt of Loki.

He put down his mug slowly, trying to remember the details. There were the usual things - flying, the infinity gauntlet burning through his hand - and then there was a foreign landscape of dark ice passing under him and his hand holding onto Loki-

“Boss, you have a call from Loki.”

He almost jumped at FRIDAY’s voice. It took a moment for the information to sink in.

“Wait, _ Loki _?”

“Yes, he is calling from New Asgard."

He considered not accepting the call, but Loki would probably take it as an invitation to show up at his doorstep. He chugged the rest of the coffee, took a deep breath, and waved his hand. “Patch him through.”

“Hello, Stark.” Loki’s silky voice filled the room, and this time Tony was not imagining the way his soulmark under the shirt very distinctively _ warmed _ at his soulmate’s voice. He rubbed over the skin with annoyance.

“What do you want?”

“Is this how you show your gratitude for my help? I’m disappointed.”

“What help?” Tony grumbled. Okay, so maybe Loki did contribute a little in fixing Vision, but he didn’t feel like admitting it, not when Loki sounded so smug.

Loki chuckled. “Such forgetfulness. Did you not sleep well last night?”

His heart skipped a beat. He knew it. He knew Loki had something to do with the dream. 

“What did you do? Did you get in my head? I swear if you-”

“I didn’t do anything. _ You _ did.” Loki cut him off impatiently. “Your kiss has widened our connection just enough for certain things to slip through, especially when the mind is at its most defenseless. I don’t see how _ that _could be my fault.”

“Oh, right.” Tony deflated, fiddling with the mug.

He really hadn’t thought that one through, had he? Thanks, brain, for kicking common sense to the curb.

Still, his own stupidity was better than the nagging suspicion that maybe that urge, that rush of heat, wasn’t even his. Maybe it was the soulbond exerting its will, coloring everything he felt, like how Wanda’s magic had wormed into his mind.

“Stark?”

Tony realized he was gripping the mug too tightly and put it down on the counter. “Yeah, umm, so, why are you calling again?”

“As I have mentioned, I trust the data collected on Sakaar has led you to successfully restoring your android?”

Tony tipped his head back, staring at the ceiling. “You really have all this planned out, haven’t you?”

“I don’t know what you mean."

“The trip to Sakaar, getting me to-” He sighed. “Nevermind. Just say it, what do you want in return?”

“Nothing unreasonable, of course.” Loki’s sweet tone reminded him of Pepper right before she locked him in a room stacked full of papers to sign.

“... I think it only fair that you give me a tour of your realm in return. You did complain that Sakaar fell short of your expectations of what a vacation should entail.”

Tony was glad he had finished his coffee. “You’re kidding- I’m not going on another trip with you!”

Loki hummed. “Shame. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that mortals are so quick to forget the kindness bestowed upon them. You clearly had no intention of paying me back for saving your life, let alone this small favor.”

The last part, delivered in a breezy tone, smothered the rest of Tony’s protests in his throat. “I didn’t say I’m not paying you back,” he mumbled.

Loki’s end was silent. The guilt-tripping bastard.

“How long are we talking about here?” Tony asked.

“A month shall suffice.”

He sputtered. “A mon- are you kidding me? Two days.”

“Two weeks.”

Tony crossed his arms. “Four days.”

“A week. I’m not asking you to endure torture, Stark.”

_ No, you’re just asking me to jump in your trap with eyes wide open. _Who knew what methods Loki would resort to in order to get him to finish their soulbond?

He sighed. “A week and then we’re even?”

“Yes.” Loki chuckled. “Then we are even.”

Tony covered his face. “Fine, but I’m picking the place.” 

“Of course.”

Tony could practically hear Loki smiling on the other end. He grumbled, “I hope you’re not expecting Sakaar’s splendors. It’s a high bar.”

“I’m confident you’ll pick somewhere equally delightful.”

Which was a lie. Loki didn’t like his suggestions of Alaska or Antarctica or any other safely deserted place. Tony wasn’t about to take the god of Mischief to populated vacation spots. 

In the end they settled on going to a private island. Tony knew Howard owned several. No danger of harming bystanders. Nothing to steal and definitely no dead robot to revive.

Loki hung up with the promise to drop by at noon, which was sooner than Tony liked, but he might as well get it over with. He had FRIDAY called up the satellite images of the islands to choose one for their trip.

It turned out Howard owned six islands. (Six! Why did the man need six?) Tony squinted at the projected images. He didn’t want to seem like he was trying to impress Loki, but he didn’t want to be mocked either. After some debate, he picked the nicest-looking one located in the Caribbean. The island looked like a crescent moon with long strips of sand on both ends curving into blue water.

Tony stared at the island and sighed for the hundredth time of the day, then he yawned. He was too tired for this. Maybe he could dig a hole in the sand to hide from Loki and sleep for a week straight.

Loki seemed unimpressed when they got to the actual island, which Tony was a little miffed by despite telling himself he didn’t care.

Dazzling white sand and clear blue water? Lush tropical woods? A three-story villa perched on the edge of the sea? It was like walking straight into a Windows desktop wallpaper. Everything was kept pristine by the island’s caretakers. Compared to Sakaar, this place was paradise.

“There’s nothing here,” Loki said, trodding on the soft sand in his leather boots. His usual dark leather getup clashed with the sunny beachside.

Tony stopped in his tracks. “What do you mean there’s nothing? There’s the beach. What else did you expect when I said we’re going to a private island?”

Loki eyed the palm trees behind them. “Are there even games to hunt?”

Tony stared. “We’re not hunting,” he said and received a frown. “Is that what Asgard do for vacation? I mean we could take a yacht and fish if that’s your thing but I was thinking we could just, umm, do nothing?” _ Preferably for a week, _he added in his mind.

At Loki’s continued frown, he crossed his arms. “This is what people do on a vacation. They lie in the sun and drink alcohol and splash around in the water once in a while.”

“Are you telling me that Midgardians prefer to spend their leisure time languishing in idleness?” Loki’s tone was dripping with disdain, but there was disbelief and a trace of awe in his face, and Tony found himself tickled by Loki’s reaction.

“Yup, mostly,” he chirped, and walked toward the row of tiki huts at the edge of the water.

Hearing Loki huffing behind him, Tony turned around without breaking his stride, walking backwards, arms raised. “Come on, cheer up. At least there’s no trash.” He got an eye roll. So much for impressing a god. 

He slipped into the shade of the nearest hut and plopped down on the beach chair. On their way to the island, he had been meaning to check in on Peter but kept getting distracted by Loki. He tapped his wrist bracelet.

“FRIDAY, status report on the kid.”

A hologram of Peter sprung from the bracelet. He was making his way through a group of students in the school hallway while talking to someone behind him.

“No threats detected, boss,” FRIDAY said. 

“Okay, good, good. Keep me updated.” Tony sighed and let the hologram vanish.

He wasn’t being paranoid, he told himself. Just two months ago, Peter was targeted by some vengeful S.I. ex-employees, and things got messy. He had been keeping a closer eye on Peter ever since. He couldn’t afford to lose the kid again.

“I could place some protective spells on the boy,” Loki said in his ear.

“Jesus Christ!” Tony leaned back so quickly that he almost tipped over, one hand gripping the edge of the chair. His other hand covered his ear, which was still tingling from Loki’s breath. “Haven’t you heard of personal space?!”

”Apologies,” Loki said without looking sorry at all. He was next to Tony, draped across another beach chair, which had not been there five seconds ago. Tony pointed to the other huts in the distance.

“You know there’s plenty of space. How about you mov-” He trailed off, finally noticing something was off about Loki.

Loki was wearing a shirt. A normal shirt. The dark leather outfit he had been wearing was gone, replaced by white linen shirt and emerald green pants. Tony had never seen Loki in so few layers of clothing. He still looked striking, but in a more human-on-a-beach way than alien-invading-the-shore way.

Tony cleared his throat. “... how about you go over there?”

“Do you let all your guests blister under the sun?” Loki tilted his head, revealing more of his long pale neck under the shirt. 

“What? You can just stay under the-” Tony found his finger pointing at nothing but sand where the huts had been only ten seconds ago.

He retracted his arm. Loki was looking back at him with innocent confusion.

He took a deep breath and immediately regretted it when Loki’s scent hit him - fresh wood with a sprinkle of mint - and his heartbeat did the opposite of calming down. Loki was too close. Tony’s eyes lowered to Loki’s lips and his brain started autoplaying the memory of those thin lips pressing against his own-

He all but rolled off the chair.

Blaming his attraction on the soulbond was all well and good when Loki wasn’t in front of him. As it was, the attraction felt inconveniently real.

He dragged the beach chair away from Loki. It was heavier than it looked and swerved with his fumbling movements, drawing squiggly tracks in the sand. Loki watched without comment, one eyebrow arched, his silence somehow coming off more judgey than if he had spoken. Tony ignored him and pulled the chair to the edge of the shade.

He sat back down with more force than necessary and glared at spots of sunlight peeking through the grass roof. Loki said nothing, which was good. It was perfect. Tony could just… sit here and enjoy some actual vacation time and not think about the kiss at all.

After what felt like an hour of alternating between staring into space and dragging his mind away from uncomfortable subjects, his eyes strayed to Loki.

Loki had a book in hand, reading, a perfect picture of ease.

He turned a page in his book. The shirt sleeve had slipped down low enough to leave his wrist bare. Tony felt stupid for not noticing this sooner, but now that he did, he zoomed in on Loki’s right hand, looking for _ it _\- and there, on his inner wrist was a faint red mark.

Tony squinted. It seemed fainter than the blue soulmark on his own skin. He could make out the shape of a flame. At least it looked like a flame. Soulmarks were usually manifested in elemental symbols. Intentional or not, Loki had always covered up the soulmark by long sleeves or gloves, and this was Tony’s first time seeing it.

He didn’t get a chance to see much in the penthouse years ago, too busy coughing and trying to get some air back into his lungs after Loki dropped him like a hot potato. He did remember looking up in confusion and seeing Loki gripping over his wrist.

They said the very first meeting between soulmates never went the way they imagined, and boy was that an understatement.

He hadn’t imagined he would be _ scared _ when he finally felt the burn of a soulmark blooming over skin. He certainly hadn’t imagined his soulmate - who he _ knew _existed, fuck those jokes about Tony Stark being too soulless to have a soulmate - to be an alien invading New York or a mass murderer who would have killed Tony without a thought if the soulmark had not burnt into his wrist and made him let go.

He sometimes wondered if the universe hated him.

“Are you done looking?” Loki had put down his book and was studying him. There was no trace of rage in those eyes now, only a wall hiding whatever calculation was in his head.

“You know,” Tony said, “You didn’t exactly like it when you first discovered that we were s- that, but now you’re okay with it?”

Loki blinked, taking in the question as if he didn’t already know exactly what Tony was talking about. “People change their mind all the time,” he said casually.

“Not about this, not with the way you had looked at me.” Disappointment Tony could understand, but Loki’s reaction went way past that. His expression had burnt into Tony’s memory. Shock. Rage. _ Shame _.

“... I admit I had reacted poorly,” Loki said, “It was not my finest moment.”

Tony refused to be sidetracked by the half-apology. “But _ why _ were you so pissed off?” 

Loki didn’t answer.

“Let me guess, you thought you deserved better than a lowly human.”

They glared at each other.

“No Asgardian had a mortal soulmate in centuries,” Loki finally said, “I was… surprised.”

So that was a yes. Tony rubbed his temple. Loki had overreacted, and now he was willing to overcome his distaste toward humans for a power boost - maybe it was as simple as that, but when had things ever been _ simple _ with the god of Mischief?

He asked a few more questions and learned how good Loki was at leading him off on tangents. Try as he might, he couldn’t pin down Loki’s motive for wanting the bond beside the same old vague answers of ‘mutual benefits’. Maybe there was nothing to pin down. Maybe he was being paranoid.

He leaned back in the chair with a sigh and tapped his bracelet, projecting a hologram of the Mark XC in front of him. His mind needed to focus on something less confusing than Loki, like that stealth armor design he had been meaning to finish. 

“Have you ever wondered what you could achieve if you have more time?” Loki asked.

Tony turned the hologram with a flick of his wrist, watching it twirled. “Has it ever occurred to you that there might be downsides for a human to outlive all his friends?”

To lose Pepper, Rhodey, Happy, Peter and everyone else he cared about to the passage of time... how long would it take before he got lonely enough to try to recreate his friends with some fucked-up AI technology?

“... your friends, they’re important to you.”

Tony didn’t know what to make of Loki’s wry smile. It was gone in a moment. Loki shook his head lightly and huffed, eyes turning mocking.

“Mortals have little choice but to find satisfaction with their small lives. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected you to be any different.”

“Yeah, well, we can all see how _ satisfied _ you are with your fancy long-ass Asgardian life.”

Tony didn’t think the words were particularly cutting. Loki was the most give-no-fucks person he knew. He went where he pleased, did what he pleased. He was king of New Asgard. Everyone left him alone. He _ should _be satisfied.

But Loki looked like Tony had slapped him. He fell quiet, expression closed off.

The silence got awkward, and Tony turned back to his project.

He fiddled with the plate design, trying to ignore Loki’s sulking presence, trying to stop his mind from dwelling on aging and death, madness and solitude, all the while in the background the waves crashed against the shore in an endless cycle.

He must have been more tired than he thought because even with a head full of anxious thoughts, he had somehow dozed off.

When he opened his eyes again, the hologram of the armor glowed bright against the fading sunlight. Long blue shadows stretched across the sand, and the sea mirrored the sky’s palette of pink and orange gold. 

Loki’s chair was empty.

His first thought was that Loki had left, which wasn’t as much of a relief as he expected.

He was saved from examining his feelings further when he spotted a tall and lean silhouette walking along the shore. Loki’s hair and clothes flapped in the wind as he made his way toward the far end of the island. Occasionally he would pause to stare out at the sea. From afar, he seemed just like a normal person taking a stroll. Maybe if Loki were just that- if any other person had those gleaming eyes and wicked smile…

Tony shook off his wandering thoughts. He couldn’t get sidetracked. This was Loki! Earth-invading, power-crazy, humans-are-ants Loki. Tony wasn’t going to be fooled. He was going to get through this week and go back to living his life. That was all.

As Tony approached, Loki turned to him, the waves lapping around his feet. The usual faint curve at the corner of his lips was absent, his eyes on Tony dark and thoughtful. There was something in his expression that Tony couldn’t quite pin down. It couldn’t be fear. A wariness, perhaps.

Tony stared into Loki’s eyes, eyes that caught the golds of the sunset, and he blanked on what he had planned to say.

“I thought you left,” he said instead.

“You can’t expect me to make it that easy for you,” Loki replied, but his voice lacked his usual bite.

“No, that would be disappointing.”

Loki searched his face. Tony’s skin itched under that gaze until he finally asked, “What?”

“You’re happy,” Loki said.

“Huh?”

“You have your friends. You have a place in this realm, and you think that I- that the soulbond would disrupt all that.”

Putting it so plainly made something hot and uncomfortable twist in Tony’s chest. “You say it like you weren’t aware of it before,” he mumbled.

“Do you wish for me to leave?”

Tony’s breath hitched. With a pang he realized he didn’t. He didn’t want Loki to leave.

When had that happened? Was it bond’s influence? Or was he so desperate for companionship that even Loki would do?

He should have ended the trip then, but that would require too much good sense. Nope, he, in typical Stark fashion, chose to bury his head in the sand (not literally, of course). 

He gave a half-hearted chuckle. “We did agree on a week, so that’s what I plan to do- unless you die of boredom first. Are you bored? We could find something else to do. We could start a campfire or-” His eyes darted anywhere but Loki’s face and caught something shiny in Loki’s hand. “What’s that?” he asked too eagerly.

Loki kept his eyes on him a beat longer before throwing the thing over to him. He fumbled to catch it. It was a test tube with a stopper, the glass container sparkling under the sun’s dying light as he turned it in hand. An opaque liquid flowed inside the tube. “What-?”

“I chanced upon something interesting in the woods. You might want to search there." 

“Wait, what?” Tony was trying to avoid dealing with his problems, not having another problem on his hand, literally. “What do you mean search the woods? Loki?”

But Loki was already walking toward the trees. Tony sighed and followed. Loki led him into a clearing, and he watched wide-eyed as the ground opened up to reveal a circular black metal door embedded in the earth like a cancer mark. 

Why didn’t he see this coming?

Of course Howard built a secret underground bunker on his private island. Of fucking course.

The old man was paranoid. Obsessed. Just Tony’s luck that he picked the island with the secret hideout.

“You went down there?” he asked to delay the inevitable.

“You don’t have to.”

Tony ran a hand down his face. “I do, actually.” Because he knew what he was going to find.

The rusted elevator shook and sputtered when it moved, but it still took them down. His suspicion was confirmed when the elevator doors opened to reveal a research lab. Stacked around the musty room were notes, blueprints, prototypes of weapons ranged from guns to missiles to deadly things that didn’t fit any category. 

The jackpot was the mysterious liquid contained in that test tube. He found racks of test tubes with the same liquid. He found its identity and formula on the computer screen - the recreated super soldier serum, a version of it anyway.

“Thanks, dad," he muttered, gripping the edge of the metal table hard for a moment. It wasn’t fair, but right then he resented Loki for leading him to this cold place lined with evidence of a brilliant mind driven by obsession and fear.

He hooked FRIDAY into the system and wiped the data clean. Under the flickering fluorescent light, he dismantled and destroyed everything until only the most volatile stuff remained.

“Say, umm-” He glanced at Loki leaning against the wall. “If these blow up, can you keep the explosion contained?”

“I don’t see the point in this, Stark.”

“Is that a ‘no’?”

“Energy shield is a waste of magic,” Loki said, “and certainly not necessary when you could dispose of these things in the sea.”

“Says the guy who changed outfits with magic and vanished a bunch of my huts,” Tony muttered. That earned him a rant about the very obvious difference between energy manipulation and ‘artlessly pouring out energy like drunks at a feast’.

“-okay, okay, can we just- I’m sorry for being an ignorant muggle, alright?” Tony rubbed his temple. “And anyway, I need these completely destroyed.”

“They are not even your creations.”

Tony didn’t have the energy to explain. He wasn’t sure he could explain. It wasn’t just about keeping the weapons out of the wrong hands. He wanted- he needed to burn away everything this room reminded him of.

He put on his armor and got to work.

The sun had long set by the time they emerged from the bunker. The island was deserted except for the two of them standing over the sealed-off entrance. He was so mentally drained that he didn’t even make a quip before pressing the button that would set off the explosives deep underground.

The chain of explosions was a bit more… intense than he anticipated.

In an instant Loki raised his arm. A barrier of green light shielded them from heat even as the blast threw them back. More rumblings followed. They scrambled to get out of collapsing trees, white hot fire breaking apart the ground under their feet. Tony grabbed Loki and half-flew, half-tumbled the rest of the way into the sea just in time to avoid the fire engulfing everything above water.

For several seconds, the underwater scenery was lit up bright as day. Then the fire above them subsided.

Tony poked his head out of the water and retracted the helmet. Hot air and the sharp smell of smoke hit him. A few feet away, Loki was pushing back clumps of hair plastered to his face. They were about 20 yards away from the shore. 

Silently they watched the scene before them.

The palm trees were on fire. The villa was missing its roof and also on fire. The beach was a zoo of crackling, flaming debris. The island was spewing thick white smoke like a piece of barbecue meat.

“This is impressive,” Loki muttered.

“Why can’t you be impressed by normal things?” 

Loki snorted. _ Snorted. _Tony tried to glare at him, but Loki just laughed louder.

“This isn’t funny,” Tony complained, biting his lips, “I fucking destroyed an island.”

A few seconds later they were both laughing like madmen, standing chest-deep in water at the edge of a burning island.

Tony laughed so hard that he felt tears at the corner of his eye. This was probably not a healthy or sane response, but no one was around to judge.

“I’m too old for this.” His face felt flushed from the hot air and the laughter. Loki rolled his eyes at Tony’s words. His cheeks had taken on a dust of pink, black hair glistening in the firelight.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re barely a child in Asgardian years.”

“Hey!”

Loki just laughed, and something curled pleasantly in Tony’s chest. It was alarming how much he was starting to enjoy making Loki laugh like that.

He looked away. ”So much for a week. We didn’t even last a day.”

There was a pause before Loki said in a casual tone, “I did tell you to dispose of those things in a sensible manner.” He waited as if bracing for him to say something else.

Tony realized Loki was waiting for him to use this as an excuse to end the trip. They did destroy their vacation spot within a day. It would only be logical to call the whole thing off.

When he didn’t say anything, Loki moved toward the shore, black hair and white shirt clung tightly to his broad shoulders.

“We could go somewhere else,” Tony blurted out.

Loki glanced back at him. “And where do you propose we go? Another island to keep the population safe from me?”

Tony shifted. “Well, I was thinking somewhere with slightly more people.”

Loki waited. Tony bit his lips. Last chance for common sense to swoop in and stop him.

“... ever been to Vegas?”


	5. Forest

If it weren’t for the soulmate thing, Tony was sure he would have slept with Loki by now. 

There were moments he had teetered on the edge. Moments of exhilaration and glee as they wreaked havoc on one seedy casino after another. Loki’s fingers brushing over slot machines, spilling coins onto the floor and drawing scrambling feet and hungry shrieks. Tony wanted to feel those fingers on him, to taste that wicked smile.

Loki knew. He must have known, but he didn’t lean in close or try to flirt. The wariness Tony had glimpsed when they were on the island lingered. Loki’s eyes were quick to slide from Tony to some other distracting, sparkling things, and Vegas had those in spades.

They went everywhere, the fancy and the ugly places, all thrumming with a restless energy that matched their own. Tony found himself a spectator to Loki’s tricks, and a few drinks later, a conspirator.

Neon lights and faces all smeared together as they ran away from angry casino staff, chips and poker cards scattering in the wind. Here, in the shadows, under the veil of Loki’s magic, Tony was anonymous. Tony was safe.

He leaned against the railings, gasping for breath and laughing. Laying before him was the large fountain at the heart of the city, its light show starting over again. No one had managed yet to remove Loki’s illusions of the Avengers repeatedly falling on their asses. He chuckled at the enlarged image of his teammates’ comical expressions.

Was Loki taking him down a slippery slope? Probably.

When he fell into a bed, it took him a moment to realize he wasn’t in the hotel suite overlooking the Vegas strip. Even through a hazy vision he could tell the room was different, cozier, more wood. There was a smell of wilderness that couldn’t belong to the neon-light city.

Loki perched on the edge of the bed beside him. Now would be the time to grow nervous if he had any brain cells left.

“Where are we?” he mumbled.

“Vanaheim.”

Tony hummed. The word sparked a faint memory of Loki saying something about… going somewhere… and doing something.

He didn’t need to remember the details to guess what had happened. He had been coming off the biggest high in years, drunk, and about two million lightyears away from the rational part of his brain. At that point, he would have agreed to go to the sun had Loki suggested it.

The worst part was that he would have agreed anyway, sober or not, just to have this - whatever this was - last a little longer. It felt nice to have someone, anyone, sticking around for more than a phone call, more than an afternoon.

“I thought you wanted to fuck,” Tony said, rubbing his eyes. He felt like he had said something stupid, but the reason eluded his sluggish mind. Sex seemed like the logical conclusion for the night, right? Or was it day already?

“And have you run away in panic again?” Loki said somewhere above him, “You fled after a mere _ kiss _.”

Tony remembered now. The soulbond. The reason Loki was putting up with him at all. “Wait… but sex should be enough to-” He frowned. “You don’t think sex would be enough to complete the bond?”

“I think we both know the answer to that, Stark.”

“Tony,” he muttered. “Call me Tony. ‘Stark’ sounds like you’re mad at me.”

Loki paused. “Tony,” he said, dragging out the word, testing it on his tongue. Tony shivered. It was just his name but -

“You’re doing that on purpose, aren’t you?”

“Doing what?”

Tony rolled his eyes, or tried to. God, he was so tired. “Teasing me. Making me feel… “ he trailed off. He was half-asleep when Loki spoke up again.

“You like being teased. The real thing always disappoints.” 

“I don’t like being teased,” Tony muttered. He felt the bed shifting, and Loki’s voice was further when he spoke again.

“Get some rest, Tony.”

* * *

‘Vanaheim’ was much more benign than Tony had expected, considering the questionable way Loki got him there. It was a big upgrade from Sakaar; there were real mountains instead of trash mountains; the air was fresh; the inhabitants looked sane, if a little reserved, and dressed like villagers on the set of a medieval fantasy movie.

Loki had no trouble fitting into the fantasy surroundings with his Asgardian armor back on. If anything, he seemed to be more at ease here. Tony hadn’t recognized the constant tension in his face until it was absent.

Loki was such a good mood that he lifted Tony’s hangover headache with his magic (without asking first, which was annoying, but the headache had been killing him so he let it go). Loki even forgot to tack on his usual jabs about mortals when answering Tony’s questions about Vanaheim. 

They visited an empty castle of the size of the mountains. A castle that, according to Loki, had been made for giant gods of ancient times. The stone statues of these supposed gods remained, lining the walls, their carved expressions serene in the face of solitude.

The ancient civilization also left knowledge inscribed in the stones, knowledge that the present-day inhabitants were content to ignore. Loki translated a little of the inscription for him, and he found the underlying scientific principles intriguing. There was something great buried there, waiting to be mined.

The interest sparked by Vanaheim, however, was nothing compared to Nidavellir.

Tony was overwhelmed for a good minute geeking out over the forges. Even with the station only half-restored since Thanos’ siege six years ago, Nidavellir was magnificent, its heart beating strong with every grinding of metal and crackles of heat.

The huge place was manned by very few dwarves. They tolerated Tony’s poking around, especially after Loki’s dramatic account of how Tony had heroically killed Thanos _ twice _, which was a bold-faced lie, but seeing how it was letting Tony inch closer to the forges, he decided to keep his mouth shut.

One dwarf and his smaller companion (who later turned out to be the dwarf’s soulmate) paused in their work and sat down to answer Tony’s burning questions with more than just grunts or cryptic words, and suddenly he felt like a kid in a candy store. Ideas and plans swarmed his head as Nidavellir’s technology opened up before him, his body almost vibrating with the need to create. His hungry look was answered when the dwarf offered him the use of forges that had been left cold after Thanos’ attack.

That was how a week-long trip stretched into two, then three. He didn’t miss Earth, barely thought about it. He almost forgot to send messages to Pepper to assure her that he was still alive.

He had hoped this trip would show how much of a disaster Loki was, but all it did was giving Loki a chance to show him what he could have if he only accepted their bond - the thrill of discovery, the joy of new knowledge. Hope. Starting anew. He didn’t have to go back to his teammates. He didn’t have to bear the burden, the constant suspicion and demand of being Iron Man.

Loki was showing him how much easier things would be if only he gave in, if only he let go of his mortal life. And Loki was doing it all without saying a word about their soulbond.

At first, being far away from Earth made Tony more cautious, not knowing what Loki would do. He wore his armor as much as possible around Loki, but he never tried to touch him. Likely, he knew it would have ruined the tentative building trust between them.

Because there was trust. With every careful step taken, every small smile and warm glance, Loki was goading him into believing that he wasn’t alone in feeling the first trickle of affection, that this was innocent. This was just a fun trip. Maybe things would turn out all right. The weight of their incomplete bond still hovered above them, but it felt farther away with every distraction that came his way.

By the fourth week, he was relaxed enough to fold his armor into its bracelet form whenever it was not needed.

He did so now on Alfheim as they trudged through the meadows. In the golden dusk, flurries of lights rose toward the sky, and Tony’s eyes came back to Loki rather than studied what those lights were made out of. His eyes always strayed back to Loki now.

That night, deep in the forest, he watched Loki across the campfire, listened to his magnetic voice recounting stories from his youth. Loki didn’t like to talk about Thor, but the faraway past seemed to be an exception. Tony wondered if Loki knew how his eyes softened and betrayed his mocking words about his brother in these stories. Perhaps the centuries in between made the memories prettier.

Without prompting, Tony’s mind wandered. If - just if - he had a few centuries more to live, would this be what he looked like talking about Pepper and Rhodey? Like they were just fond memories, their bodies long turned to dust?

The trees around them seemed to grow blacker. Colder.

He shifted a little closer to the fire.

Loki noticed his unease and paused in his story. “What is it?”

Tony shook his head. “Nothing.” The fire couldn’t drive away the cold seeping into his limbs. “I was just thinking… maybe I should check in on things back home. You know, it’s been a while.” He wanted to hear his friends’ voice to reassure himself that they were okay.

He huffed. He was being ridiculous.

He had only been gone from Earth for barely a month. Nothing was wrong. They could always contact him through the inter-galactic transmitter built into his bracelet in case of emergency. “Just- nevermind. It’s stupid. So, umm, what happened next? Did you and Thor get caught?”

Loki finished the story, and they sank into silence. The campfire cast deep shadows on his sharp features, obscuring his expression.

A beep from Tony’s bracelet broke the silence, making his heart jump.

It was only a text message from Pepper with short updates on company projects. At the end she asked as usual when he would be back, but this time she mentioned Stephen was looking for him. Huh. That couldn’t be good.

He was debating what to reply when Loki spoke up. “I want to show you something.”

With a wave, Loki made the campfire died down to embers. Darkness enveloped them. Tony had an urge to reach out and make sure Loki had not disappeared.

“Loki? I swear if you do that snake thing again-”

He was about to activate his bracelet for light when something lit up in front of him. A tiny brightness hovered in his face, glowing white-yellow like Christmas lights. One after another, tiny lights popped up. He reached out to touch one and it dissolved into sparkles.

He watched as the swarm of lights all gathered in Loki’s palms for a moment before they exploded outward. They swirled around Tony like golden dust, drawing a map of stars and galaxies. He stood up and took a few steps forward, trying to take everything in.

Loki was beside him. “The old Asgard would have you believed the universe extended only as far as the branches of Yggdrasil, but in truth, the universe has no end.”

Tony couldn’t get out words. The glittering map of the universe spun around them. He reached out, just shy of touching a silver galaxy. It expanded to reveal its star systems. Loki pointed out all the inhabited planets, describing their environments and people. It was astounding how many places Loki had been to. Tony stole a glance at him.

Shrouded in a million rainbow lights, Loki seemed ethereal, powerful. Perfect.

“Loki, this is- this is amazing.” 

Loki’s lips curled up in a tentative smile, like Tony’s words had filled him up and he didn’t quite know how to react. His eyes searched Tony’s face, and he seemed to make a decision.

“All of this - every corner of the universe, every piece of knowledge, treasure and secret - are within your reach. I can show you the paths. I can even teach you magic should you wish to. I can give you _ time _.”

Tony stiffened. “Loki-”

“All you need to do is accept the bond between us,” Loki finished, his eyes expectant.

The coldness Tony had felt sitting by the fire seeped back into his hands.

Of course. Of course the bond was all Loki wanted. He hadn’t forgotten. He just thought- hoped... he didn’t know what exactly.

“Right, umm, the bond… ” He ran a hand through his hair and exhaled shakily. He was being stupid. He needed to get a hold of himself. He needed to keep the absurd feeling of hurt from showing in his face. He needed to think before he talked-

“Do you even like me?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he wanted to slap himself. At least the question came off casual, almost flippant. Maybe Loki wouldn’t notice the weight behind it.

He didn’t expect the flash of anger in Loki’s eyes. It was gone in a moment. Loki looked away and sighed.

“You’re… tolerable for a mortal.”

“Tolerable,” Tony said.

“What do you expect me to say?” Loki sounded annoyed. "That I’m somehow _ madly _in love with you? That I would fall so low as to yield to someone who doesn’t even-” The annoyance had turned into something darker, more savage.“- to some mortal like you? Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“No” was all Tony could manage, his ears were ringing. He swallowed hard, forcing himself to breathe normally.

“I know you want this.” Loki gestured to the illusion of stars around them. “Is this not better? Is this not more worthwhile than wading through the drudgery of mortal squabbles, grinding your life to the ground for nothing but apathy- ingratitude- resentment from those in debt to you?”

He barely heard any of it.

“Tony.”

At first, he didn’t register the brush of Loki’s hand against his own. It was so light. A wave of warmth bloomed from where they touched. Before he could pull away, Loki wrapped his hand around his.

The burst of heat shooting up his arm made him flinch.

Some part of him - feral and hungry and alien - wanted to feel more of Loki’s skin, wanted to have this heat burn clean through him, to have the bond sink its claws deep into his soul- and it _ was _sinking into him - he could feel it- with every second their skin pressed against each other-

He jerked his hand out of Loki’s grasp and stumbled back through the shimmering mirage of stars. It faded, and once more he was in the dark.

The heat from their touch still coiled around his chest tightly, almost to the point of pain. He pulled down his shirt collar. In the cold light from his bracelet, he saw his dagger-shaped soulmark had deepened into cobalt blue. Hints of red from Loki’s soulmark bled through it like specks of blood.

His head reeled. He recognized the signs. Their soulmarks were starting to morph into the same shape - the final stage before the soulbond’s completion.

How could a touch of hands push it all the way to this stage when the kiss after the Sakaar trip had barely any effect?

Three weeks. That as all it had taken for Loki to get him to lower his guard, to open his heart and prime him for the bond.

“Tony-” Loki took a step toward him.

Tony activated the bracelet. The armor unfurled from the device and climbed up his arm, cocooning him.

All the little things - the soft smiles and nervous ticks, the carefree laughs… were they all an act? Was Loki watching him, noting every time Tony lowered his guard? Was Loki cataloging what Tony liked, waiting for the perfect moment to complete the bond with a touch?

He closed his eyes, steeling himself. None of that mattered. What mattered was that he had woken up from Loki’s illusions before it was too late.

“I need to get back,” Tony said. His voice came out hard and cold, his expression hidden behind his helmet.

Loki became very still. Tony expected him to argue or even throw a fit, but Loki’s silver tongue seemed to have failed him. He tried several times before saying, “... you want this too. The bond would not react this way if you didn’t.”

Tony looked up at the night sky peeking through the tree branches. He should be able to locate the spatial rift they had came through. Granted, he would need to go through two other realms before getting back to Earth, but he should be able to get back.

“Wait,” Loki said, “there’s a faster way back to Midgard. I can- I can show you.”

Tony meant to refuse, but he couldn’t quite say it. “Fine,” he finally muttered.

The heat from their touch gnawed at him.


	6. Prajna

They made their way back to Earth in silence.

It took less than an hour, and yet it felt longer than any stretch Tony remembered during their trip. 

There had been several times he was sure that Loki was about to say something, but he never did. They had walked deeper into the woods, and its oppressive darkness only added to the invisible wall between them.

The heavy silence lasted until the dark woods of Alfheim abruptly gave away to light and the familiar sight of his lab.

Between the sudden brightness and the disorientation of walking on the secret path, it took him a moment to realize they were not alone.

Standing by the lab’s glass entrance door was Stephen. He had apparently been waiting for Tony, or maybe both of them to show up. His magic cloak fluttered restlessly as he approached, his grim expression practically shouting ‘bad news’.

Tony sighed loudly before he could speak. “Not you too. What is this? Do magicians get points for breaking into my lab?”

Undeterred by that comment, Stephen looked between Loki and him and said, “You haven’t completed your soulbond yet.”

Tony’s heart sank. Whatever bad news he came to deliver, it was related to the soulbond, which was just great. Fantastic. The last thing he needed was for this mess to get even messier.

He retracted the helmet from his face and sighed again. “Look, unless the world is about to end, this really isn't a good time for… whatever you’re here for. It’s been a long day and-” 

“This won’t take long. Believe me, I would’ve kept my concerns to myself if it were anyone else but him. I hate to suffer my conscience should you turn up dead.”

“Okay, what-”

“No harm will come to him,” Loki said in a low tone, “But I can’t say the same for you.” His hands were still, too still. Tony took a side step so that he was sort of halfway between the two as if somehow this would prevent Loki from burying a dagger into Stephen if he wanted to.

Stephen’s eyes stayed on Loki while he addressed Tony. “You’re aware he is implicated in a series of museum thefts?”

“Yeah?”

“From the start, I suspected those stolen artifacts were magical in nature, but I didn’t know the specifics. A few days ago, I came across some runes that resembled the carvings on the missing artifacts, so I did some research-”

Stephen drew a series of symbols in mid-air. They hovered there, burning orange-gold. He explained the runes in what amounted to mostly gibberish to Tony, but the last bit caught his attention.

“... in short, I believe those artifacts were stolen specifically to perform a spell - one designed to forcibly open up a person’s innate magical channels.”

“You know not what you speak of,” Loki cut in before Tony could say anything, and something in the calmness of his tone made Tony’s heart pound.

Tony gave a weak laugh. “Wait, are you saying… Loki wanted to do that to me? To make me somehow have magic? I mean, that’s not possible, right?”

“Most people have the potential,” Stephen said, “Although many find learning magic near impossible due to their temperament or mental blockage. A spell like the one I described would, in theory, bypass the time-consuming process by employing sheer force. Obviously, the risks are extreme. I suspect the spell is more likely to maim or kill the target than anything else."

“But even if- why? Why would he want that?” It didn’t make sense. It couldn’t.

“If you possess magic, he could use you as a channel of power. A soulbond is a powerful connection and could be abused in the hands of a careless magic user, not that most would ever consider doing such a thing to their soulmate.”

Tony caught Loki’s flinch before he could hide it behind his impassive mask. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

It couldn’t be. Loki couldn’t possibly want power so badly that he would-

Tony squeezed his eyes shut and exhaled.

But it made sense. It lined up with what he knew of Loki. Lying. Deceitful. Self-serving. He had always wondered what exactly Loki would gain from their bond, and now he knew.

Loki wouldn’t look at him. He was silent and still. Tony wished he would say something. Stephen was quiet too, and Tony realized he was waiting for him to respond.

“Is this-” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “Is this all you came to tell me? That Loki stole a couple of things that may or may not give me magical powers?”

While the expected look of annoyance did show up on Stephen’s face, there was something else mixed in it - a hesitance that reminded Tony uncomfortably of Thor the last time they talked. It felt like pity.

“Tony, this might not be what you wanted to hear, but being your soulmate does not mean he can’t hurt you, and if-”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. I do. Now can you just-” He sighed, rubbing his face. “Can you just leave?”

Later, he would wonder why he had thought it was a good idea to be left alone with Loki. Maybe deep down he had hoped there was some other explanation. Maybe the bond was clouding his judgement. The sensation of heat from their earlier touch clung to his chest, adding to his irritation.

As soon as the portal closed behind Stephen, Loki broke his silence.

“I never lied about the bond benefiting me, and you knew we would be sharing magic. You had experienced it back on Sakaar. You took magic from me, and it was painless. There was no harm done.”

Tony kept staring at the exit door. 

“I didn’t lie,” Loki said.

Tony wanted to rub his chest. The heat would not dissipate. It seemed to be growing. Even with the helmet retracted, the armor was starting to feel like a pressure cooker.

“I think you should go,” he said without looking at Loki.

“Perhaps... perhaps I should have been clearer on certain details, but if you just give me a chance to-”

“To what?” He whipped around. “To lie some more? Try another trick? To try and convince me to become your magic battery?”

The words tasted foul on his tongue. The concept was both unfamiliar and yet, utterly familiar - to be seen as nothing more than some object of use. Loki just found a whole new way to go about it.

“It’s nothing like that. The power could be shared-”

“Right, power. That was it, wasn’t it? You wanted more power and I was your ticket. Tell me, just how exactly did you plan on springing those voodoo artifacts on me? While I was asleep? While I had my back turned?”

“No! I would never- it was merely a thought. I would never have used that spell. You’re… important to me… ”

Tony watched Loki faltered. It was as if he was hearing how unconvincing his words were even as he said them.

Tony felt an urge to laugh. “Fuck.” He shook his head and muttered again, “...fuck.” He looked at Loki. “You really think I’m stupid, don’t you?”

Loki stared at him without answering.

“But you’re probably right. I am stupid. Thor already warned me about you, and yet, here I am."

“Thor spoke to you?” Surprise and dread crossed over Loki’s face.

Tony felt his lips twisting into a smile, his desire to draw blood spurred on by the rising heat.

“I’m guessing you have a good idea what he’d said about you. Oh, he thought he was helping, but he couldn’t hide the fact that he felt sorry that I got you as my soulmate.” He spat out the hateful word. “He told me it would be best to accept my fate. To accept you. All I needed to do is get used to your tricks and lies because that was how you were and how you would always be!”

Loki stilled for a few seconds, and then he was right in Tony’s face, resentment pouring off of him like poison.

“What does Thor know of me? What do you know? You had things handed to you all your life-”

“Are you serious-”

“-Thor had everything while I was left forgotten in the shadow. I was lesser. I was untrustworthy. Weak. I had to claw and fight for what I wanted - my right to learn magic, my place, this pathetic joke of a throne - all of it - even my soulbond, even you… ” He broke off.

“Fuck you.” Tony was so angry that he almost couldn’t get the words out. “I’m not- you don’t own me just because of some stupid bond. I didn’t choose this, okay? I’d be fine with anyone else, literally anyone-”

A searing pain cut off his words, and he almost gagged. He pressed his hand over the chest plate.

The heat clinging to his chest exploded. He was on fire. Boiling from the inside, filling up with the urge to touch-

Loki was right there, at an arm’s length. All he had to do was get out of his armor, reach over, and touch-

He stumbled back from Loki. “What did you do?”

Loki let out a shuddering breath, clutching his own chest. His eyes locked on Tony were brimming with pain and anger. “This is not my doing. The bond is becoming unstable in its current state.”

Tony gripped the edge of the counter and cursed. He wanted to believe that Loki was lying, but he could feel it. He could feel acutely the part that was not himself - the burning part that had no rationale, no thought, just the primal urge to touch. He pushed back at it. He was not about to be forced into this. He was not.

“We need to fulfill it. The pain will not cease until we do so,” Loki said.

“No, get out.” Tony backed away, widening the distance between them. 

“Don’t be a fool. Would you rather be driven mad by this torment?”

“Get. Out.” Tony clamped the helmet over his face and raised his repulsors. His hands trembled with the effort, every instinct screaming at him not to hurt Loki.

Loki fell quiet.

He stared at the thrumming repulsors aimed at him, breathing hard. Then his eyes darted up to the Iron Man mask and stayed there, searching. 

Tony saw the moment something sort of just… cracked in him.

A feverish gleam entered those eyes, eerily similar to their encounter in the tower years ago. Loki’s lips moved, but whatever he uttered was too low to carry across the space between them.

“You’re my fated,” he said, louder, hands clenched so tightly that they shook. His figure seemed to grow with his rising voice. “My fated. My destiny. The missing half of my soul-” He stalked toward him with the air of a feral beast.

Tony backed up until he hit the wall.

“You’re supposed to be different!”

Loki slammed his fists into the wall around Tony, his face marred by pure loathing and his voice torn out of him in a deafening howl.

“You’re supposed to be the one person in the universe who would choose me above all else! You’re supposed to-”

He moved as if to grab him, and Tony shot the repulsors square in his chest, throwing Loki back and off his feet several paces away. 

“FRIDAY, call the team,” he muttered, his heart hammering against his chest. He heard no answer. “FRIDAY?"

He cursed and edged toward the exit, Loki’s voice still ringing in his ears.

How had he forgotten? Loki was dangerous. Unstable. Fully capable of squashing him like a bug, which seemed exactly like what he was going to do right now, soulbond or no.

“Tony Stark murdered by crazy soulmate”, would make one hell of a headline, he thought hysterically.

He glanced back. Loki had stayed crouched on the floor, his head lowered.

Tony’s steps faltered. He couldn’t have seriously injured Loki with the shot, right? Sure, he had upgraded the repulsors again recently, but still-

Before he could think any further, fresh pain burst inside. He must have blacked out for a moment because when he opened his eyes again, he was lying on the floor, gasping. Through the rush of blood in his ears, he heard movement in Loki’s direction, and his stomach dropped.

Loki’s figure appeared in his blurred vision, distorted and dark with the ceiling light behind his head. It was hard to make out his expression as he looked down at Tony. His leather armor was a little singed, but there was no sign of injuries. Tony must be crazy to worry about him when he should be more worried about himself. He could barely move with the burning pain running through his body as Loki crouched over him and touched a hand to the side of his helmet.

The HUD fizzled out. Green light filled Tony’s vision.

Loki’s magic was enveloping his armor like a thin film, making it vibrate and screech under pressure. He grimaced, thinking Loki was about to crush him like a tin can, but instead the armor shattered like glass all around him.

He pushed himself up with trembling hands amidst the broken pieces, catching the purposeful look in Loki’s eyes.

Loki wasn’t going to kill him. He was going to finish the bond.

He tried to scramble back. Loki easily pinned him against the wall, hands digging into his shoulders like claws.

Tony squeezed his eyes shut.

He could hear Loki’s heavy breathing, could almost feel the brush of air on his skin. Loki had to be suffering from the bond’s effect just as he was, and yet he stayed still, hands on his shoulders. They were so close. Just a few inches, and the torment would end.

Loki spoke, his voice low and strained.

“I know… I know you don’t trust me, but I can help. I can make it better…”

Tony opened his eyes to find Loki watching him with imploring eyes. Strands of hair had fallen down his face, and beads of sweat covered his forehead. His expression reflected the same pain twisting in Tony, and for a second he almost gave in. Almost.

“No,” he breathed. It was all he could do to keep still. If he moved, he didn’t know if it would be to get away or to close the distance between them. 

Loki’s hands tightened on his shoulders for a moment before they moved down. Tony’s breath hitched.

Instead of touching his skin, Loki pressed his palm over Tony’s heart.

Through the clothes Tony felt something tingling, reaching into him.

“What are you-”

He felt himself being tugged. Something- Loki was doing something to him. He tried to struggle- to get away.

It happened in a heartbeat.

One moment he was on the floor of his lab, gravity and all, and the next the world was pulled out from under him like a rug.

It was as if some invisible tether holding him in place had snapped, and he was falling. He was falling through walls and ceilings, through everything, past stars all blurring into one sickening silvery light. 

He might have screamed, but he couldn’t hear his voice. Then, everything faded away.

* * *

He heard wind chimes.

Something brushed against his face. Fingers running through his hair. Sunlight kissing his eyelids.

He wasn’t in agony anymore. Every touch took away a bit of the pain. He was weightless, drifting in a world made of light.

He must be dreaming.

Dreaming of days long past when he still had Pepper, before their budding relationship withered under the discovery of his soulmate. It was his fault. He had pushed her away. If only he had fought for her. If only he hadn’t run.

He tried to call her name. The touching ceased.

He tentatively blinked open his eyes and caught a glimpse of clear blue sky before squeezing his eyes shut again from the overwhelming brightness.

“Tony.”

He froze. That voice. He opened his eyes.

Loki was looking down at him, his face almost luminescent in the absurdly bright surroundings.

Tony scrambled up from his lying position and found there was nowhere to back away. They were in a boat. A tiny, wooden boat.

“What the fuck?” He looked around. For a second he thought the boat was on solid ground because there were flowers - a gazillion of them, pastel pinks and purples and golds, spreading out as far as the eye could see - but then the boat drifted sideways, and he realized the flowers were covering over the water like a snowy blanket. Everything was immersed in the light like it was summer midday, but there was no sun, no source of light he could see. It was as if the light came from within the objects themselves.

“Am I high? No, wait, am I dead?” He felt odd. He couldn’t feel his usual aches and pains. There was something - an edge, a weight - missing from his surroundings, or from his senses. At the same time, he felt a clarity, as if a veil had been lifted from his eyes.

“We are astral projecting.”

At Tony’s stare, Loki said, “We’re… dreaming, in a sense, while our physical bodies remain at your workshop. The bond cannot grow any further here in the astral plane, so you’re safe from me.” His hands had curled up.

There was a glowy quality to Loki - to everything else - that reminded Tony of BARF’s projections. Loki’s armor showed no burn marks from repulsor blast, and his hair was tucked back neatly. It was as if the scuffle in the lab had never happened. The impression was reinforced by Loki’s usual blank expression firmly back in place.

“Yeah, that’s not exactly reassuring, coming from you.” Tony pushed himself as far away as possible in the cramped little boat. With a pang, he realized the burning pain in his chest was gone. He rubbed the spot in alarm. For all he knew, Loki could be lying and the bond could have already-

“As I said, you are safe. The bond remains incomplete. The pain has ceased because we have touched in our astral forms, which apparently is enough to ease the bond’s effect, at least temporarily.”

“Okay, I don’t even know where to begin-” Tony rubbed his face. “... where are we exactly?”

Loki didn’t immediately reply. A breeze blew past them, drawing a gentle ripple among the flowers. 

Tony thought he heard wind chimes again in the distance, and a word came into his head out of nowhere. “... Pra- what? Prajna?” he muttered. The flowers seemed to grow brighter in response. He looked around and of course saw no other person. “I think this weird place just told me its name.”

“These realms made of pure light and thoughts do not abide by the rules we are familiar with in the physical world.”

“Uh-huh…. “ Tony narrowed his eyes, picking up a trace of hesitance in Loki’s tone. “Why did you bring me here?”

There was a pause. “I didn’t. I only intended to remove us from the physical plane, not traveling such great distances. It would require some effort to find the path back. We would not have ended up this far if you hadn’t run the instant I brought you into the astral plane-”

“I didn’t run.”

“You did, quite blindly, I might add.”

“Are you saying this is my fault?”

“No, that is not-” Loki looked away. “...I have no wish to quarrel.”

“You have no wish to-” Tony huffed. “You attacked me in my lab! I told you to get out, and you attacked me. Then you kidnapped me to this weird-ass fairyland-”

"I saw no other way! The bond wasn’t about to stop pushing unless I did something, so I took the only alternative at the time. I didn’t have to. I could have simply… ”

“Simply what? Force me? Let the bond run its course? Yeah, no. How about you stop acting like you’re doing me a favor when you were the one who set off the bond in the first place?”

Loki said nothing.

Tony could hear the faint sound of birds, but nothing was moving within sight. Just flowers. Miles and miles of blooming flowers gently swaying in the breeze.

He sighed, leaning elbows against his knees, and stared at the bottom of the boat.

“Look, just- what are you trying to achieve here? You said so yourself. This is only temporary. How long would it take before the bond starts grilling us again? A day? A week? I mean, what’s the point of delaying it? If you think I’m going to change my mind-”

“I can stop it,” Loki said, so low that Tony wasn’t sure he heard right.

He looked up. He could see the surrounding sea of vibrant colors reflected so clearly in Loki’s eyes, and yet he could not read an inch into the thoughts that lay hidden behind.

“You mean getting rid of it? That’s not possible-”

“Nothing is impossible. I should have done it from the start, but perhaps there still is a chance the bond could be severed. It would require some preparation and time, however.”

Tony crossed his arms. “Okay, even if that’s possible - which, for the record, sounds way too good to be true - what’s the catch? Why would you be willing to do this?”

Loki stared at him for so long that he grew uncomfortable under its intensity.

“I want something from you, after it’s done.”

“It’s always a trade with you, isn’t it?” But in truth, Tony was relieved that they were back on the familiar grounds of deals and bargains. It was simpler that way.

The problem was Loki wouldn’t tell him exactly what he wanted in exchange for trying to break their bond.

After some back and forth in which he was nowhere closer to getting an answer, Tony flung his arms up in frustration. “If this is some sort of trick to get me to accept the bond instead-”

“Whatever you may think of me, I do not relish the thought of being bonded to someone who despises me.” Loki smiled bitterly. “No, this is not a trick. I would do as I promise and break the bond, for a price.”

“Which is what?”

Loki still wouldn’t say.

They glared at each other. Tony shouldn’t agree to this. He should figure out the problem himself. He also knew soulbonds were magical in nature. If there was a way to counteract it, it would be with magic. That, and if Loki really wanted whatever it was so badly, then he would hold up his end of the deal.

“Fine,” he said, or rather, gritted through his teeth.

The look that touched Loki’s face was hard to describe, but it definitely wasn’t the smug satisfaction Tony expected.

Loki withdrew into a cool and distant manner and promised to start working on the spell as soon as they returned to the physical world. The boat drifted listlessly among the flowers while Tony waited.

Loki had his eyes closed in concentration, supposedly trying to find the path back. After realizing how long he had been staring, Tony tore his gaze away, letting his eyes fall to the flowers outside the boat.

He needed to stop fixating on Loki. Hadn’t he learned his lesson? Loki was dangerous. Selfish. It was painfully obvious that Loki only cared about what Tony could give him.

He reached out to the water and lifted what looked like a sunflower. It started falling apart as soon as it left the water. He tried to hold onto the deep yellow petals, but they slipped through his fingers as if having a will of their own.

“Tony.”

He turned to the direction of Loki's voice, their surroundings already dissolving.

This time the falling sensation only lasted a beat or two, and then he was staring up at the ceiling of his lab, heart-pounding, his fingers curling around something that wasn’t there anymore.

His body felt impossibly heavy as he pushed himself up with a grunt. The lab was in disarray, probably from the impact of the repulsor blast. Pieces of his shattered armor strewn about the floor. FRIDAY was saying something he couldn’t quite latch onto.

Loki was nowhere to be seen.

There was only a slight ache where the burning pain had been in his chest, which was good. He should be relieved. He should check his soulmark just to be sure. But he just kept looking around as if Loki might jump out any minute.

“The Avengers are en route to assist in ten minutes,” FRIDAY said, jerking him out of his daze.

“Shit. Cancel that. Tell them it was a false alarm. Machine malfunction or something.”

FRIDAY’s ‘yes, boss’ sounded a bit offended. He sighed.

He really didn’t want to explain to his teammates what happened and why. He wasn’t sure he knew the answer himself.


End file.
